small groups have been the backbone of churches all over the world. if there’s renewal and life it’s normally accompanied by a vibrant cell structure. richard white, a friend and fellow team member at cms jointly leads cms encouragement of small missional communities and he has been revamping the anglican cell uk network and launched a new web site anglican cell uk. it looks great. if you are involved in cell church (by which i don’t necessarily mean the formulaic approach that is often associated with the term but anything that has small communities as the main event), it should be a great hub and resource. go and say hi.
if you are interested in cell stuff in any way there is a list of 20 consultants that are willing to offer support and help in various regions and areas of experience.
my last column for the church times was on the network of small communities dream in liverpool that richard is part of. here’s the column, though it has already expanded to about 10 groups now.
Dream – Worship in Small Missional Communities
In February 2001 a group of young adults in Liverpool began to meet at the request of the diocesan bishop to produce a report that would both outline the various ‘young adult oriented worship’ initiatives already underway in Liverpool and the surrounding areas, and make recommendations as to what could or should be pioneered by the diocese of Liverpool to better address the needs and concerns of young adults who are interested in exploring questions of faith but not interested in going to church. As part of this the group decided to meet together to create worship. This went so well that they carried on meeting after the report was published and a year later Dream was born with the strapline ‘re-imagining church’. It began with a fairly typical city centre alternative worship approach – music, visual projections, stations, and ritual. But after a couple of years they decided to take a very different tack. Rather than organise large impressive worship gatherings Dream re-configured as a series of small groups joined via a wider network and united by a common ethos making the most of web technologies to communicate and share resources with one another.
This has been remarkably successful and grown to 6 small Dream communities in the network in Liverpool, Bolton, St Helens and Haydock. One of the groups is a Dream for kids. These small communities and the worship they do together isn’t an add on extra – it is church. Malcolm Camberlain, one of the founders told me that each group’s worship has a different flavour. What unites them is their shared ethos rather than a particular style. A Dream might include discussion, music, prayer, contemplation and creative participative ritual, sometimes around a meal. Often these things are simple. One example of a simple creative exercise was to look at an image of 5 different landscapes – mountain, desert, beach, canyon and beach and to reflect on what landscape you were walking through in your own life as a way fo facilitating discussion and prayer. The Dream web site is highly participative and this gives the sense of belonging to something wider. They share ideas for worship on a blog as a series of ‘dream to go’. And there is a Dream lectio page where scripture readings are posted that the wider community can read and post comments and reflections on. I guess in years gone by this might have been called cell church but that all got a bit formulaic and predictable. Dream have come up with something much more creative and freer for those involved.
I increasingly meet people who are meeting in small groups and working out their Christian faith and worship just in that small group – some are connected to the Anglican church and others have moved beyond the denominational edges. They are highly relational, the worship is often simple and creative, and they are really fuelling the faith of those involved. In many cases they eat together and share communion in the context of a meal. Dream led worship at Greenbelt last year and will be back this summer to share their own unique way of worshipping with festival goers in the New Forms café. Richard White who co-ordinates the Dream network part time spends the other half of his time working with CMS to encourage small missional communities and he has been working to help re-launch the Anglican Cell Network whose web site goes live this month.
see dream